It’s been a couple of years and knee surgery, but I decided to give this trail another go! I was able to hit the trail right at daybreak and didn’t take as many pictures this go around. Started from the Covina trailhead around 6:09 a.m.
The weather was great for this run, and I didn’t encounter the sun until about mile 19. Going up to Buzzard’s peak there was some overgrowth before clearing the tree line. Once I topped out at the Walnut water reservoirs above the soccer fields, I knew it would be mostly downhill until reaching Schabarum park. After the wash section of the trail there is now a railroad crossing that does not utilize the pedestrian tunnel. I was lucky to not get stopped by a train in this section. The Colima road pedestrian tunnel is also closed and there is signage to take the Colima road detour as others have done. The climb out of Schabarum park to the Hacienda Heights ridgeline was rough. All the remaining pedestrian tunnels were intact and utilized.
Approaching the Nike Missile site the trail does shoot out from the switchbacks, and although overgrown and needing bushwacking, I was able to stay on the two (2) outshoots of the trail both before and after the top of the Nike missile site hill. After that it was a downhill past the parking lot into two (2) more pedestrian tunnels all the way to the mile zero (0) marker which is still intact just past the big Schabarum/Skyline sign showing the whole trail.
I utilized a support team throughout the run to provide food and water.
Final time was 4:45:19 for the overall FKT